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Bill Harris, QMI Agency

Aug 23, 2013

, Last Updated: 12:43 PM ET

Imagine if every episode of Unforgettable were unforgettable.

And what if every TV show were like that?

I have to admit, there have been times when I've thought, "That sure would be helpful for my job." Especially when someone wants to talk about how something in the current season of Breaking Bad relates to something back in the second season, or whatever.

Sadly I have one of those normal brains where the more TV I see, the more stuff needs to be pushed out of my noggin to make room.

New York police detective Carrie Wells, the lead character in Unforgettable played by Poppy Montgomery, does not have one of those normal brains. Carrie remembers everything.

And while that skill certainly would come in handy for a TV writer if it could be channeled into that specific area only, it would run the risk of driving a person crazy if allowed to run amok. That's the running theme of Unforgettable, which is in its second season, airing Sundays on CBS and CTV.

Yes, Carrie remembers every good thing that ever happened to her, but she also remembers every bad thing. And all of the mundane stuff in between. Dates, places, numbers, what she had for breakfast on January 21, 1993.

Carrie has a rare condition called hyperthymesia, which actress Marilu Henner has in real life. Henner serves as a consultant on Unforgettable and guest-starred in a first-season episode.

One thing that the makers of Unforgettable probably wish they could forget is that the series was cancelled after its first season, which consisted of 22 episodes in 2011-12. But a month and a half later CBS changed its mind, and Unforgettable was brought back as a summer series, with this second season consisting of 13 episodes.

You know how cop shows fall into two categories? There are the dark ones and the light ones. Now, most of the light ones deal with serious crimes, for sure. But there is a definite difference in tone between, say, Rookie Blue and The Wire. And that's not an analysis of quality, merely a recognition of difference. Even within the confines of the cop-show genre, sometimes you're in the mood for something dark, sometimes you're in the mood for something light.

Unforgettable definitely falls into the latter category. It has a good cast and it's slickly put together, but there are a lot of conveniences and coincidences that move the plots and cases along quite quickly.

In last week's episode, Carrie had to investigate the death of a neurologist and author who had helped her greatly to deal with her condition 10 years ago. My first thought was, "Should Carrie really be working this case? Would she even be allowed to do so?" But hey, it's TV. And the story actually was quite interesting.

So while Unforgettable isn't quite unforgettable - unless you have one of those special brains - it wouldn't be a crime if you remembered to watch it.